Re: [microsound] maths science and electronic music

["Mr.D" <craque@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Apr 12, 2005, at 3:41 AM, morgan quaintance wrote:

> So mathematical and scientific discussion is out of place in 
> qualitative discussion, but it is accurate in disscusions on how light 
> is made.

Did you answer your own question?

Following along with your metaphor... more people than not will never 
think about the mathematics behind music in the same way that your 
people in a room discuss not the physics of Light but the quality of 
there being light. In analysis, they examine the light, which can be 
done to many deep (and mathematical) degrees, like music.

There is no 'link' present between math and music because math is not 
the same 'thing' as music. I propose that Math is merely an abstraction 
of a quality of relationships, invented to quantify those relationships 
so that they can be studied. It's a meta-adjective used to define 
things in certain terms. But the definition of something in one term 
doesn't negate its existence to itself. I am blonde, but I am bald, so 
unless you knew what I looked like before I started shaving my head, 
you wouldn't know I have different color hair than eyebrows, which are 
red. These facts don't change the manner of my existence, though they 
describe me in different terms according to different places along a 
timeline. Similarly, you cannot 'unlink' the fact that I have hair, 
regardless of its invisibility, because it is simply a describable part 
of me. Math is a way to describe a part of music which we cannot see 
because it's not 'there' to the naked ear.

> so i guess im saying, macking music can be mathematical and 
> scientific, but music as the finished product is not?

this would assume that there is a separation between the creation of 
music and the essence of music, which as any improvisor will tell you, 
are most certainly linked.

matt


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